We analyse post-war Dutch migration to New Zealand. We document that history, reflect on analytical and econometric modelling and then combine a sample of Dutch migrants in New Zealand with a representative sample of Dutch in The Netherlands to estimate wage equations and the determinants of the migration decision. We use the results for ex post evaluation of the migration decision. JEL classif...

The analysis of land investment and tenure security usually assumes land scarcity. However, some developing countries have communities with land abundance. This article therefore examines the effects of land abundance for investment and tenure security. The paper develops a formal test of land abundance and estimates a system of three simultaneous equations. The empirical analysis uncovers sign...

The concept of stability á la J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, which is composed of a pair of internal and external stability requirements, formalizes the idea of standard of behavior. This paper studies the decisiontheoretic foundation of stability, by establishing some epistemic conditions for a “stable” pattern of behavior in the context of strategic interaction. JEL Classification: C70, C...

Employment Effects of Payroll Taxes An Empirical Test for Germany* This study tests to what degree the incidence of payroll taxes in Germany is on employment and whether in consequence payroll taxes, in particular social insurance contributions, are the culprit behind the growing unemployment problem. Using industry level data for 18 years (1977-1994) we estimate a system of five interdependent...

The Big Carrot: High Stake Incentives Revisited This paper provides an empirical demonstration of high stakes incentives in relation to religious practice. It shows that, when both positive (carrot) and negative (stick) incentives are available, the former are more effective than the latter. Specifically, it is shown that beliefs in heaven are much more relevant than beliefs in hell when estima...

This paper estimates the importance of network effects in the market for Yellow Pages. I estimate three simultaneous equations: consumer demand for usage of a directory, advertiser demand for advertising and a publisher’s first-order condition (derived from profitmaximizing behavior). Estimation shows that advertisers value consumer usage and that consumers value advertising, implying a network...

This paper estimates a simultaneous model of moderate and problem drinking, smoking, and wages using a random sample of employed Canadian men. The results indicate that sample selection into alcohol and tobacco use is not negligible. With all else in the system held constant, moderate and heavy drinking are both associated with considerably higher wages than abstention from drinking, whereas sm...

We investigate the issue of strategic substitutability/complementarity in differential games. We prove that instantaneous best replies exist if Hamiltonian functions are multiplicative in the control variables. Otherwise, if the Hamiltonians are addively separable w.r.t. controls, a dominant strategy emerges for each player. In this case, however, imposing stationarity on the differential equat...